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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706902">A Snowball a Day Keeps the Darkness Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendency/pseuds/tendency'>tendency</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ben Solo Lives, Extra Treat, Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendency/pseuds/tendency</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a few snowballs make their way through the Force bond.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Snowball a Day Keeps the Darkness Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts">Shadaras</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Are you in a conference room?</em> Ben asks. <em>What's the temperature there? It's probably nice and warm, isn't it.</em> Despite the light years between them, he looks like he's standing right next to her, except for the way he keeps occupying the same space as Captain Tana, two seats down from Rey. The tangibility of the bond ebbs and flows; sometimes they can interact with each other's surroundings, sometimes they can't. Right now, Rey's getting a general sense of "snow" around Ben, and obviously whatever he's seeing around her is enough for him to correctly identify her location. But not enough to be bothered by phasing through Captain Tana.</p><p>Rey doesn't respond but rather affects intense interest in what Senator Arden is saying, thus preserving for a little while longer her reputation as the Great and Powerful Last Jedi and not That Crazy Jedi Who Talks to Herself.</p><p><em>Here on Hoth,</em> Ben continues, as if Rey doesn't know where he is. As if she hasn't sat in half a dozen different meetings where the question of what to do with Ben-Solo-who-used-to-be-Kylo-Ren was discussed. (Not this meeting, thankfully. This one's just about supply chains and logistics and Rey doesn't have to say anything at all.)...<em>the temperature is significantly below freezing. My uncle almost died out here, you know?</em></p><p>Yes, Rey did know, because the Solo–Skywalker family do not actually have that many old stories about Hoth, and Ben had already run through all of them by the time he'd been there two standard days. But it's still nice to hear him talk; he sounds so much happier these days, despite his imprisonment.</p><p>Senator Arden says something about ration allocation on Yavin, and Rey turns her head to look at him, but Ben just follows her movement, bouncing around to stand in front of her again. <em>They've still got the old doors around the base that my mom told them to close and leave the others out in the cold. She always teared up at that part of the story. They've been repaired from all the damage they took during the Hoth Invasion and they close them every night. They let me out every day, though. It's not as if there's anywhere I could go.</em> He looks around him, and she knows he's not seeing the conference room. Probably just a ton of snow. She's never been to Hoth herself, but from what she's heard, that's about all there is to see.</p><p>"Thank you all for coming," Senator Arden concludes, and Rey murmurs polite nothings as she works her way to the door. She heads right for the training course in the nearby jungle; she's been around people enough for the afternoon.</p><p>Her bond with Ben, of course, makes him the one person she can't leave behind no matter where she goes—not that she'd want to. She can't see him right now, so he's probably behind her for the moment. Well, her perception of the projection of him is, or whatever it ought to be called; the problem with Force bonds being so rare is that the Jedi texts don't say much about them, and she hasn't bothered to figure out the words to talk about what's happening yet, and neither has Ben.</p><p>Speaking of whom, he hasn't said a word in quite some time. Figures; she's finally somewhere where she can respond and now he's gotten tired of blathering about snow and how cold it is. "Are you—" she begins, but that's as far as she gets before something cold and wet collides with her back. "Ben!" she yelps, and spins around, only to catch a second snowball in the face. </p><p>He grins. "What? There's nobody here to snowball fight with."</p><p>In the tropical warmth around her, the snowballs melt instantly, leaving her nothing to throw back at him. She grabs a couple leaves off of the closest tree and hurls them instead, but they lack aerodynamics and fall to the ground in front of her, not even making it through the bond to Hoth. (And what his jailers there would think of the sudden appearance of green leaves, she doesn't know, so perhaps it's for the best.) She holds up a finger. "Give me a minute."</p><p>She races for the kitchens, where half a dozen droids are making dinner. "Do you have ice chips?" she asks the closest droid. It bloops affirmatively and scurries off.</p><p>"It's already so cold here," Ben says. "Do you think that will even do anything?"</p><p>"Good point," Rey says. "Maybe I should wait until you're inside where it's at least a little bit warm. Hmm, and I could wait until you're asleep, too."</p><p>He grins. "On second thought, you can go ahead and throw it at me now."</p><p>"I thought you'd see reason," she says with a matching grin. The droid is back, with a bucket of ice dangling from its jointed front arm. Rey's pretty sure Ben can't see it yet, but as soon as she takes the bucket, he will. "Turn around," she says.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"I didn't get to see your snowball, you don't get to see what the droid found." He shrugs, and complies. She finds a chair and drags it over behind him, then takes the bucket from the droid. Climbing up on it, she's finally taller than him for once, but she doesn't wait long to savor the height differential before pouring the entire bucket over his head.</p><p>There are a lot of ice chips, and they provoke a very satisfying yelp. The droid seems very puzzled at how few ice chips are hitting the ground, considering how many were in the bucket. </p><p>Ben spins around, wiping damp hair out of his eyes. There's a few scattered ice crystals; the ice obviously hasn't had a chance to melt as fast as when it passed through the bond in the other direction.  "Clever," he says. "I was expecting it from behind, not above."</p><p>"Next time maybe I'll use the Force and have it come from another direction altogether."</p><p>"Next time? You mean we're not even yet?"</p><p>"Well, we're even for <em>now</em>," she says. "So we have two options. You throw another snowball at me and I throw more ice at you. Or...you make a bunch of snowballs for me, and I go find some of my friends to ambush with them. It's hot enough here they'll probably enjoy it."</p><p>"Does that mean you liked the snowball I threw at you earlier?" he asks. "Because if so, I'm not sure we're even. That was really cold."</p><p>"Maybe just a little bit," she says. "It's too humid here for it to be just right. So, teamwork, or further competition?"</p><p>"Teamwork," he says. "But only if you tell me what their reactions are, since I'm not there to see it."</p><p>"Don't worry," she says. "I'll tell you everything."</p>
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